Survey finds companies fear employees will want raises after taking courses

Most Canadian small businesses are still not offering formal training to employees for a variety of reasons, including high costs, un-co-operative workers and the fear that employees will want a raise after it's over, according to a survey released yesterday.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted the training survey last fall and found that only 2 per cent of respondents offered formal training, such as workshops and classroom courses, and that 12 per cent still offered none.

Most of the 6,740 business owners surveyed either said they offered a combination of informal and formal training (43 per cent) or just informal training (43 per cent), like tutoring and mentoring, to help get staff up to speed.

However, the report contained news the federation considered encouraging: 56 per cent of respondents said they were spending more time and money on training than they were three years ago. And despite the cost of training, about 48 per cent said they want to offer more training in the next three years.

Catherine Swift, CFIB's president, said the data showed that "the training trend within this sector continues to grow and gather momentum."

The association said training is increasingly becoming an important issue because, according to the survey, 56 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are "turning to hiring under-qualified employees due to the shortage of skilled labour.

"Internal training is the bridge between the supply from the labour market and the ideal work force needed by SMEs . . . training is increasingly become an important business tool," the report stated.

Despite all the benefits, companies complained that they face several key barriers when it comes to employee training. Two-thirds of respondents said they couldn't afford to have employees take time off for training programs, about half said it's too expensive, 27 per cent said employees didn't want to put in the time and 15 per cent were worried that workers would want raises if they gave them the proper training.

The association recommended that governments could "encourage more internal training" by lowering payroll and employment insurance taxes and providing more information about training.